LOS ANGELES – Wearing a bright orange uniform from the Los Angeles County jail, former NFL star Darren Sharper appeared in court here Friday in a state of legal limbo.

Should he be allowed to go free on bail after more than a week in lockup?

Or should he remain in custody indefinitely while authorities in different states try to prosecute him for multiple cases of date rape?

Judge Renee Korn called it an "extremely hard call" in an extradition hearing Friday.

"Quite honestly this is a case (in which) there is no case law giving me guidance," Korn said.

But the answer, for now, is that Sharper, 38, remains in custody in downtown Los Angeles. He will stay there at least until Thursday, when Korn is scheduled to consider the matter again in another extradition hearing, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

In effect, Sharper is caught between the laws of two states -- California and Louisiana.

He pleaded not guilty to felony rape charges in Los Angeles on Feb. 20 and had been free on $1 million bail until authorities in New Orleans issued a no-bail warrant to arrest him last week. He also is suspected of raping women in three other states, adding up to a combined total of nine suspected rapes in five states. So far, he faces formal charges only in Los Angeles, while other cases remain under investigation, including in New Orleans, where authorities last week issued a warrant for his arrest.

The New Orleans warrant application accused him and an acquaintance, Erik Nunez, 26, of raping two women there on Sept. 23 while the women were under the influence of an unknown substance. Sharper surrendered on that warrant in Los Angeles last week, but the warrant didn't provide for bail, forcing him to stay in custody until a judge determines his extradition status.

In Friday's hearing, Korn indicated she was inclined to release Sharper on bail again unless authorities in Louisiana soon file formal charges against him. So far, only police charges have been filed against him in the form of an affidavit attached to an arrest warrant.

"To hold him in perpetuity on an arrest warrant seems to be grotesquely unfair," Korn said.

Korn then scheduled another hearing for Thursday, giving prosecutors in New Orleans and Los Angeles a chance to bolster their cases while Sharper remains in jail.

Los Angeles prosecutors argued he should stay in custody because they want to keep him here while they prosecute him for the rape of two other women in Los Angeles in October and January.

Sharper's attorneys are fighting that.

"The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office is working in close concert with New Orleans law enforcement and prosecutors … to unlawfully hold Mr. Sharper in custody," Sharper's attorney, Blair Berk, told the judge Friday.

Attorney Gloria Allred appeared at the hearing Friday and is representing one of the alleged victims in Los Angeles. She favors having Sharper stay in Los Angeles so her client can have her day in court.

"We'd like this case to go first before the Louisiana case," Allred told USA TODAY Sports.

Police suspect him of raping nine women in five states since September: two in New Orleans, two in Los Angeles, two in Las Vegas, two in Arizona and one in Miami Beach, Fla.

All cases fit a similar pattern, according to police reports and court records: The women were raped after partying with Sharper and then being drugged or intoxicated, often not remembering what happened.

Sharper first was arrested in Los Angeles on Jan. 17 and was released upon posting $200,000 in bail. Korn later increased that bail to $1 million and set other conditions for his release, including ordering him not to go to nightclubs and not to be alone with women he didn't know prior to Oct. 30, the date of the first alleged incident in Los Angeles.

After posting the $1 million bail, he returned to jail Feb. 27 after surrendering on the New Orleans warrant.

Sharper's and Nunez's attorneys have disputed the allegations and pointed out what they contend are flaws in the evidence. In court last month, Sharper's attorney, Leonard Levine, told the judge that "all of these were consensual contact between Mr. Sharper and women who wanted to be in his company, who voluntarily ingested alcohol and drugs in many cases."

Herbert Larson, the attorney for Nunez, told USA TODAY Sports that neither alleged victim accused his client of rape in the initial New Orleans police report. "The word rape did not occur," he said.

Nunez and Sharper admitted to other witnesses that they had sex with the two alleged victims in New Orleans without their knowledge or permission, according to a report by New Orleans police in the application for their arrest warrant.

Larson questioned the basis of the alleged admission.

"You have a third-party statement by a witness who is not identified and whose credibility can't be assessed, " Larson said. "That's the basis to hold my client in jail? You've got to be kidding."

Sharper faces up to 30 years in prison for the alleged crimes in Los Angeles. If convicted in Louisiana, he faces life in prison.

He played in the NFL for 14 years, with the New Orleans Saints, Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings.